SEATTLE

The Cloward-Piven article called for “cadres of aggressive organizers” to use “demonstrations to create a climate of militancy.” Then, the authors predicted, the following would happen: Politicians, intimidated by threats of black violence, would appeal to the federal government for help. Carefully orchestrated media campaigns, carried out by friendly, leftwing journalists, would float the idea of “a federal program of income redistribution” in the form of a guaranteed living income for all — working and non-working people alike. Local officials would clutch at this idea like drowning men to a lifeline. They would apply pressure on Washington to implement it. With every major city erupting into chaos, Washington would have to act. The Cloward-Piven Strategy was an example of what are commonly called Trojan Horse initiatives — mass movements whose outward purpose seems to be providing material help to the downtrodden, but whose real objective is to draft poor people into service as revolutionary foot soldiers; to mobilize poor people en masse in an effort to overwhelm government agencies with a flood of demands beyond the capacity of those agencies to meet https://www.discoverthenetworks.org/organizations/clowardpiven-strategy-cps/